


Finley Mansell match-making service, how may we help you?

by tinyniel



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Matchmaking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-06
Updated: 2014-09-06
Packaged: 2018-02-16 07:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2261106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyniel/pseuds/tinyniel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lovesick.</p><p>That was the look. He’d seen it enough times before. All his mates were married after all. Happily, even. Anytime he went ‘round someone’s house for dinner, he felt like he was trapped in the last five minutes of a Richard Curtis-movie.</p><p>No, he knew that look well enough. And he’d spotted it on Kent’s face not ten minutes after his first day with the team. And after that ... well, he couldn’t unsee it, could he? Kent trailing after the boss like a puppy. ’Yes sir’, ’of course, sir’, ’how high, sir?’</p><p>A blind fella could spot it a bloody mile away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finley Mansell match-making service, how may we help you?

**Author's Note:**

> I figured it was time to give Mansell some credit. He doesn’t really get a lot of that. And for all that he’s an insensitive bastard, I’m pretty sure he’s got a heart somewhere under all of it. So I wanted to bring it out.
> 
> Somewhere after season 3, before season 4. If anything here offends anyone, I’m sorry. I know I said I’d give him a heart, but he’s still Mansell.

Lovesick.

That was the look. He’d seen it enough times before. All his mates were married after all. Happily, even. Anytime he went ‘round someone’s house for dinner, he felt like he was trapped in the last five minutes of a Richard Curtis-movie.

No, he knew that look well enough. And he’d spotted it on Kent’s face not ten minutes after his first day with the team. And after that ... well, he couldn’t unsee it, could he? Kent trailing after the boss like a puppy. ’Yes sir’, ’of course, sir’, ’how high, sir?’

A blind fella could spot it a bloody mile away.

Of course, he’d expected it to blow over at some point. Had to, didn’t it? The odds of a DC shagging above their rank were bad enough as it was. When both the DC and the ’above rank’ in question were male, the odds didn’t really get better. And when, to top it off, the ’above rank’ in this particular case was DI Chandler ... the chances weren’t even astronomical. It just wasn’t going to happen.

So, Mansell had fully expected it to blow over in time. Hopefully not before he’d gotten in a nice jab or twenty, but it was inevitable.

He’d been convinced the suspending would do the trick, because damned if he would have stood for that kind of treatment. But then Kent had been summed to their cloak and dagger meeting at Ed’s house, and the way the guy had lit up at the sight of their DI smiling at him was enough to make anyone lose their dinner.

He should’ve known then, really. That this wasn’t about to just sort itself out.

And it hadn’t. He’d sat through day after day, week after week, case after case of Kent’s pining. He probably thought they didn’t notice, but the truth was he couldn’t be any more bloody obvious if he’d walked in to Chandler’s office butt naked, the words ’do me now’ written across his chest.

... God, that was a mental image he hadn’t needed.

The worst had been that short period of time when Miles thought he was finally getting somewhere with his match making-schemes. They’d all had bets going at the time, very hush-hush of course, but Kent had refused to get in on it because it was ’petty and childish’.

The first girl hadn’t really been a good bet in any case. Mansell was familiar with Lizzy Pepper. Or rather, a mate of his was, and he wasn’t surprised that hadn’t worked out. He’d had higher hopes for the second one, she was practically a female version of Chandler. And despite the fact that he shuddered to think what would happen if the two of them produced offspring, he couldn’t deny they were a perfect match. Even if she was some piece of work.

Which seemed to be what Chandler had realised in the end too, to Mansell’s surprise and delight. He’d lost a fair bit of money to the Skip and Riley as a result of it, but he’d never been more happy to pay up after a failed bet, because it was the first redeeming feature he’d seen in Chandler since the day he met him.

... well, almost anyway.

And then there had been that therapist-bird, and that had just been sad all around. They’d all had bets going on that too, of course, but when things ended the way they did they never spoke of them again.

But, amidst all of it, Mansell couldn’t help paying attention to Kent’s reaction. The kid had tried to hide it the first time around, with varying success. He was a little too offhand, a little too casual about it. And his tone was a little too bitter when he talked about how she ’probably isn’t his type, from what I gather’.

It had been worse with DI Norroy. There was no denying she was Chandler’s type, and Kent hadn’t even tried. He’d gone from ’eager’ to ’kicked’ puppy every time she’d entered the incident room, and in the end Mansell had just ended up feeling sorry for him. He might play himself off as the kind of bloke who wasn’t easily tied down, but Mansell was no a stranger to being broken hearted, and about midway through the case Kent’s mood started worrying him. He’d tried to help as best he could, suggesting they go out and get properly pissed, but Kent had waved him off and insisted he was fine.

Which Mansell might have been able to believe, if it weren’t for the fact that the dynamic DI duo chose that moment to walk through the door, and Kent’s face fell like a house of cards.

And it had been even worse the last time. Mansell had nearly fallen of his chair when Kent’s exasperated accusation that Chandler was blind to doctor Lamb’s possible involvement because ’you’re clearly attracted to her’ had drifted through the glass doors into the incident room. It’d gone dead quiet in there, you could have heard a pin drop, could’ve cut through the expectation with a knife. That was Kent showing his hand, for all to hear, and surely that had to change things.

But no. And this was what baffled Mansell about the whole thing; Chandler was completely oblivious, to all of it. Most of the time Mansell could see why, because to anyone who wasn’t looking properly Kent just looked like a copper of the ’extra eager’-variety, and there was usually at least one of those per team (and he knew it wasn’t him or Riley, so that didn’t leave much choice). He could understand that Chandler wouldn’t read too much into that.

But Mansell hadn’t needed to see Kent’s face after that outburst to know that he must have had his feelings written all over it. So either Chandler didn’t want to see, or he really didn’t know what he was looking at.

He’d been convinced that confrontation would be the end of it for Kent. Surely his cup had to run over at some point, how long could he possibly bother with a bloke who so clearly wasn’t interested?

Four months later, Mansell was starting to think the answer to that question was ’forever’.

Because even with everything they’d put behind them in the past few years, even with the blow outs and the suspension and all the times Kent had slunk around the incident room like a ballon someone was slowly letting the air out of, the kid still had it bad.

And Mansell’d had just about enough of it.

So he’d started paying attention. Not to Kent, but to Chandler. Or rather, to how Chandler acted around Kent. Riley and the Skip might give him shit for being useless at his job, but Mansell really wasn’t, if he put his mind to it, and they knew it.

So he’d taken on a bit of an investigation of his own. 

Because really, for all that he took the mickey out of Kent for his crush on their boss ... and his name, and his suits and his curls and ... well, the point was that no matter what Mansell did take the mickey out of Kent for, he still really liked the guy. And if he was going to insist on being so bloody gone on their DI, then Mansell had to do what any good friend would, and see if there was any way he could nudge ’em together.

Of course, it wasn’t an easy feat. He couldn’t reveal his plans to Kent, the guy’d be furious with him. And he couldn’t exactly plonk himself down next to Chandler at lunch and open with the line «so, how ’bout that Kent, eh?».

No, this sort of thing called for the keen observational skills they all claimed he didn’t have.

Of course, the first obstacle was that, according to Miles, Chandler wasn’t gay. But Mansell figured that was a minor obstacle. He’d worked for Chandler long enough to know that when confronted with anything even remotely uncomfortable (especially anything personal, or related to feelings) denial was his instant and only response. 

Besides, the guy hadn’t been in a single relationship of any kind (at least not that Mansell could ferret out, and God knows he had sources in the most surprising places, so that particular bit of intelligence was sound, if not entirely complete), so how could he possibly be sure what he did and didn’t want? And anyway, Mansell had more than enough experience with guys who turned out to be not quite as straight as they roaringly claimed (and most of them claimed it much more roaringly than Chandler), and given their job and the fact that Chandler was … well, _Chandler_ , Mansell wouldn’t put it past him to not only deny that sort of thing to others, but probably just as much to himself. 

All in all, his course of action was clear; observation, plotting based on said observations and then execution.

Nothing too obvious, of course. He wasn’t about to lock ‘em in a closet together, and refuse to let ‘em out until they’d worked it out.

No, he was just going to … enable. If there was something … anything there, then he’d encourage it, tactfully (another trait his colleagues would claim he didn’t have), and see where it got them. If nothing else, his meddling would mean Kent’d get to spend more time with Chandler, and that had to be worth something, if nothing else did.

So Mansell watched. He really watched. He’d always kind of looked out for how Kent acted around their boss from time to time, because he could always use some new material, but this was the first time he’d really properly _looked_.

It was the little things he noticed first. That the shy little smile Kent’s face always lit up with when Chandler praised him was met with an answering one from Chandler. One that, as it turned out, often lingered for a few seconds after Kent had looked away.

Then it was the fact that Chandler knew how Kent took his tea. In any other case, Mansell’d take that as damning evidence that the two were shagging already, and that his work was subsequently done. Even if it hadn’t strictly speaking been him that had done it.

But in this case, it was probably more down to the fact that the two spent so many evenings working late, regardless of whether or not there was any actual work to do.

Of course, Chandler never made tea for the rest of them. He didn’t really make tea for Kent either, it was usually the other way around, but it happened on two separate occasions in the span of three weeks, and that was enough to be out of the ordinary as far as Mansell was concerned. 

But, lingering proud smiles and a couple of cups of tea weren’t much to go on. And after those three weeks, he was starting to wonder if maybe he wasn’t on a bit of a wild goose chase.

That was when he had a break through. 

Not a gigantic one, nothing to call the papers about, but it was enough to encourage him to delve further into the subject.

They were in at that frustrating, dead-end point of a robbery-gone-bad, and had been for the past three days. They were all on edge, Chandler worse than any of them (as usual). So bad in fact, that when he turned on Kent during the briefing, only to find that the DC hadn’t got around to doing what Chandler had asked him to the day before (which in fairness was _highly_ unlike Kent), Chandler had actually yelled at him before dismissing them all and slamming the door to his office. 

Kent had put on a brave face, and insisted that he deserved that, even though the Skip had clapped a hand on his shoulder and muttered something about Chandler being ‘under a lot of pressure’ and ‘he’ll come ‘round, don’t worry’.

So Mansell'd had a brainwave, and done his best to keep an eye on Chandler whilst pretending to read the file Ed had just handed him. 

It didn’t take long before he was rewarded.

Once the DI was done with his usual anti-stress ritual, he looked up slowly, eyes sliding to Kent’s desk. Kent seemed wholly unaware, dutifully bowed over the file he hadn’t got around to the night before, but despite his concentration, the unhappy look on his face hadn’t quite let go.

And then Chandler was looking just as unhappy, and guilty, eyes set on Kent with the face of a man who clearly wanted to apologise even if he knew he hadn’t really been wrong.

This was the sort of thing Mansell had been waiting for. Now, he just had to wait for an opportune moment to put it to good use

It came right after lunch, when Riley and Kent disappeared off to re-interview a witness, and Miles had to beg off early because Martha had come down with something and Judy couldn’t get off work to pick her up at kindergarden.

He waited for them all to leave before walking up to Chandler’s office, knocking softly on the door.

“Sir, have you got a minute?”

Chandler looked up, expectant. “Anything new?”

“Sorry, no.” Mansell stepped a little further into the office. “It’s- I wanted to talk about Kent.”

“Yes?”

“It’s just … it’s my fault he didn’t get to that file, sir. I kind of stuck him with some of my work yesterday.” 

Chandler’s face did that disappointed parent-thing, but he didn’t say anything.

“I had a date, you see.” Mansell put on his best cheeky grin. “Wanted to get out a little early, so I begged a favour off him. Didn’t think it’d get him into trouble. Sorry, sir.”

Chandler didn’t look pleased, but when he spoke it wasn’t as harsh as Mansell had expected.

“Just don’t let it happen again.”

“I won’t sir, promise.” He quietly congratulated himself on how well he faked meek.

Chandler dismissed him with a wave, and Mansell had to bite his cheek to keep from grinning. Now, all he had to do was wait.

His efforts were rewarded an hour later. Riley and Kent returned, non the wiser, and once they’d finished reporting to Chandler, the DI stopped Kent as he was leaving the office.

“Kent, a word?”

Kent looked mortified for a moment, but he turned back with a smile and a ‘yes sir’.

Mansell made ready to put his ears on high alert, but then Chandler asked Kent to shut the door, and he was forced to settle for sneaking a peak at the visual part of the conversation.

It was worth it, though. Chandler obviously stumbling through the apology, Kent obviously stumbling over himself to accept it (Mansell didn’t need to see his face to know that either) and as if that wasn’t enough, the look of relief on Chandler face was enough to make him decide he deserved a pint for this.

The look Kent was desperately trying to hide as he came back out made him decide he deserved two. 

After that, it was easy. All he had to do was talk Kent up whenever he could (“Kent did most of it, to be honest”), refer Chandler to Kent whenever the DI had a request (“actually, I think Kent was already onto something like that”) and feign his work-load whenever Chandler was looking for someone else to accompany him to whatever he currently needed to do. It didn’t take long before Chandler started turning to Kent for just about everything.

Mansell was pretty damn pleased with himself. Kent looked happier than he had in weeks, which was reward enough in itself. And as a bonus, nobody suspected what he was up to, they all just assumed he was trying to avoid doing more work.

And slowly but surely, Mansell started spotting an ever so slight shift in Chandler and Kent’s relationship.

They’d come back from things talking and smiling, Chandler just as much as Kent. Whenever Kent was briefing Chandler on something, the conversation always lasted longer than necessary, and by the look on Chandler’s face, it wasn’t because they were talking about the case. And when Kent stayed to work late, they always left him and Chandler chatting next to the kettle, or with Kent leaning against the doorway to Chandler’s office.

“What on earth’s going on with those two?” Miles grumbled as they were leaving one night, when the last thing they heard before the door to the incident room clicked shut was Chandler laughing.

“Beats me.” Mansell had to do his very best to keep his grin contained.

“Whatever it is, Emerson must be loving every minute of it.” Meg was digging through her bag for her scarf. “I haven’t seen him this happy since that time he accidentally walked in on the boss changing shirts.”

They all had a bit of a laugh at that, even Miles joined in with an amused huff.

“They keep this up, it won’t be long before someone walks in on ‘em shagging on his desk,” Mansell grinned, and Riley very nearly doubled over with laughter.

Yep. He was well pleased with himself.

It was easier to get Chandler along when they all went out for drinks now, too. And the DI always ended up next to Kent, the two of them talking amongst themselves, almost forgetting the others. And, after their little chat that night, they more or less left them in peace.

Mansell couldn’t help throwing glances, and God knows he had to bite his tongue on a fair share of insinuations, but he just reminded himself that he was in this for a bigger cause. And that if he succeeded, he’d have enough material to give Kent hell for the rest of his active career. That thought alone made it worth the effort.

But after nearly two months, Mansell was starting to get impatient. He’d been kept busy enough while he was still nudging them two of ‘em, but now that they couldn’t really be nudged any closer, he had no choice but to wait and watch. And patience had never been one of his virtues.

And, as far as he could tell, the progress had come to something of a stand still. Kent and Chandler were still easy and friendly around each other, they still stayed late together, often brainstorming in Chandler’s office and Kent was still the DC of choice whenever Miles was out or otherwise engaged.

But that was all there was too it. Mansell didn’t really know what he’d expected, except he’d definitely expected that at some point it’d become blatantly obvious that his scheme was a massive success.

Clearly, he’d been wrong. It even occurred to him that maybe he’d somehow made it worse for Kent, because the two of them were so close now that if this was as close as they were getting, it had to be killing the poor bloke. There was nothing worse than being that close to someone you wanted _that_ badly, only to realise that this was as close as you were ever going to get.

And once he started thinking about that, all the glee he’d worked up from his evident success so far evaporated. By the end of that week, he was grumpy, snappy and counting the minutes until the end of shift.

Just as he was pulling his jacket on, Miles slapped a file down on his desk. “Get this back down to Buchan, will ya? Apparently it was urgent.”

Mansell almost protested, but the look on the Skip’s face made him think the better of it.

“’course, sarge,” he nodded, biting his lip on a grumble as Miles just patted him on the shoulder and wished him a good weekend.

Mansell all but stomped down the stairs, navigating through the narrow corridor to Ed’s lair. It was narrower than usual this week, since Ed had acquired a new load of boxes on God knows what, and was still trying to find room for them in the already overstuffed space he called his office. Mansell wedged between the two towers of boxes stood in the doorway, hand shooting out to steady one of them as it wobbled dangerously.

“Buchan?”

No one answered, but that wasn’t uncommon. If the guy was immersed in something, you practically had to hit him over the head to get his attention.

Mansell weaved his way through the labyrinth of boxes and shelves.

“Ed? You here? I have your _urgent_ file.”

He reached the back of the room without any trace of Buchan. Mansell cursed, deciding he should have settled for just slamming the file down on the littered desk and getting the hell out of there.

But just as he turned to do exactly that, a pair of familiar voices made him stop dead.

“Kent, this really isn’t a good idea.”

“It’s OK, Ed went home an hour ago.”

Mansell ducked behind one of the more crowded shelves, finding a gap between the boxes that gave him a good view of the open door.

Kent’s back appeared a moment later, and what followed nearly made Mansell drop the file he was holding.

Kent had a tight grip on a lapel. On _Chandler’s_ lapel, as it turned out. Mansell couldn’t see Kent’s face, but he could see the boss’ well enough, and the poor guy looked ninety-five percent scared and five percent excited.

“Kent, if anyone-”

“No one’s gonna find us,” Kent insisted. “They’ve all gone home.”

“Yes, but-”

Kent put a long finger on Chandler’s lips.

“Trust me, _sir_.”

Chandler’s lips curled into a smile at that, and it was the kind of smile Mansell could _never_ have imagined on the DI’s face. 

“You don’t have to call me that when we’re alone.” His voice dropped low as he let Kent pull him along until the DC’s back collided with the only bare strip of wall left.

“I think I’d better, as long as we’re at the station.” Kent’s smile was just plain wicked. “Wouldn’t want to forget myself and start calling you Joe.”

“I suppose not,” Chandler murmured, letting go of the last bit of restraint and crowding into Kent’s personal space. “I might forget myself too, and start calling you Em.”

Kent groaned. “Mansell’d love that.”

He was right. Mansell would love that. He did love that. He was even willing to let it kill him that he already knew, but couldn’t use it for anything, because this? This was exactly what he’d been aiming for.

Chandler chuckled, moving in closer to cup Kent’s jaw. “Do me a favour.”

“Anything,” Kent breathed, and Mansell realised he hadn’t really known just how far gone Kent was until that moment.

“Don’t ever mention Mansell in a situation like this again.”

Kent let out a soft laugh. “Deal.”

He smiled, leaning up the last few inches to press his lips to Chandler’s.

Mansell had no idea how he managed to keep still, and quiet, because what he really wanted to do was whoop and punch the air and maybe do a little victory dance on Ed’s desk, files be damned.

But instead, he watched quietly as Chandler melted into Kent’s touch, watched the DI’s hands slide into Kent’s dark mess of curls, listened to the mingling of their breaths as the kiss deepened-

… yeah, this might not be the ideal place to be for very long.

Mansell’s feeling of triumph was quickly replaced by one of total discomfort. He tried closing his eyes, only to find that the noises alone were far worse than when they were accompanied by the sight of them. 

For a moment, he considered announcing himself. But the it hit him that the shock of it might very well give Chandler a heart attack, so he thought the better of it. He tried picturing an escape route that he could crawl, but since Chandler and Kent were almost blocking the door, that plan had to be nixed too.

Just as he’d decided to rip up one of Ed’s files, stuff his ears full of paper and pray his hearing would temporarily stop working, he was saved by the bell.

The sound of Chandler’s phone broke him and Kent apart, both of them startled. Chandler fished it out of his pocket, groaning at the sight of the caller ID.

“It’s the Commander. I’d forgotten I promised him five minutes before I went home.”

Kent just smiled, fingers playing with the hair at the nape of Chandler’s neck. “That’s OK.”

“I’ll be home as soon as I can,” Chandler promised, pressing a quick kiss to Kent’s mouth.

“Take your time,” Kent insisted, voice low and teasing. “Unless someone decides to brutally murder someone in the next few days, I get you to myself all weekend.”

Chandler smiled at that, stepping back as his finger slid across the screen to answer the insistent call.

“DI Chandler.”

Kent watched him go, the goofiest smile Mansell had ever seen spreading across his face. He waited a few moments before following Chandler, and Mansell gave it a good five more before he dared to do the same.

By the time the file was safely deposited, and Mansell was back upstairs, there was no sign of either Kent or Chandler. He grinned to himself, fishing his car keys off his desk and pulling his phone out of his pocket.

This definitely called for a celebration.

* 

The following Monday Mansell came in early. Much, much too early. So early, he had hoped, that he’d beat Chandler and Kent to it, and maybe catch them arriving together.

But as he pushed through the door to the incident room, he found that his efforts had failed. Chandler was behind his desk, eyes scanning the computer screen, and Kent was by the kettle, fiddling with the tea bag while he waited for the water to boil. When the door slammed shut behind Mansell, Kent turned.

“Fall outta bed, did you?”

“I’m turning over a new leaf,” Mansell grinned, shrugging out of his jacket and dropping it into his chair.

“Not a moment too soon, that,” Kent pointed out, and Mansell huffed.

“We can’t all be the teacher’s pet now, can we?”

“Sod off,” Kent grumbled, but there wasn’t much conviction in it.

“Make us a cup while you’re at it, yeah” Mansell suggested, nicking the paper off Miles’ desk.

“I’m not your mum,” Kent countered.

Mansell couldn’t help himself. “Nah, but I reckon you owe me a favour.”

Kent turned with a look that plainly said that if anyone owed anyone any favours, it was the other way around. “Since when?”

“Since ...” Mansell made a point of looking like he was doing the maths. “Since about 6 weeks ago, I reckon.”

The dawning realisation on Kent’s face was priceless.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3


End file.
